Junk Mail Mosaics!

Hello Beautiful Thinkers,

I’m sure we’ve all had a day when we open the mailbox and it’s all junk mail. Those days are particularly frustrating on those of us that have an online shopping addiction, trust me I know. I just want to throw the junk mail down on the ground an stomp it out of existence for being there instead of the awesome necklace I ordered that should have been here by now. But today I stumbled across an artist that came up with a better use for the junk mail than ash in my fireplace. Sandhi Schimmel Gold turns her junk mail into art, more specifically into mosaic portraits most often of beautiful women.

She was first inspired to try this style of art when she saw a mosaic in Venice. But it was “too heavy to carry by train,” so she decided to try her hand at making her own. After a few less-than-successful attempts with glass and a few cut fingers, it became clear that the classic mosaic style wasn’t going to do. Instead, she took the advertisements and postcards from her mail and glued the paper directly onto her paintings. And the end result has been getting her quite a bit of attention.

On her website she has a page marked The Collection which includes over 200 different junk mail mosaics that she’s created. Scrolling down the page it’s impressive to see all the portraits she’s done so far. Icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Madonna only begin her colorful collections. While the majority of her work focuses on the female portrait, there are some famous men mixed in such as Shakespeare, Elvis, and Jim Morrison. Her take on ‘upcycling’ art has gotten her a few solo gallery shows and gained the attention of more than a few celebrities and art collectors. Still, her work is available for sale on her website for a reasonably affordable price, by art collector standards anyway, ranging in the $300-3,000 range. If I had that kind of money to blow I think that one of her pieces would be an interesting item to own. Instead I’ll have to settle for collecting my own junk mail and try my hand at paper mosaics.

9 Comments

I love these. Thanks for sharing this post. Would it be okay to re-blog this and gather some of my friends to introduce your site to them? I have about 340 followers and I don’t know how many of them already follow your site; but I know they’d enjoy your work. I respect a persons rights to their posts, but would be happy to re-blog if it’s okay with you.

Reblogged this on Busy Mind Thinking and commented:
This site is amazing! I asked for permission to re-blog this post and was given confirmation to proceed. I know you’ll really enjoy it. It will make you look at garbage as a gift. Who would ever have thought that possible! Blessings on your day.